"
And for answer Jimmie Dale smiled again, and passed down the steps, and
entered the car. But the smile was gone as he leaned back in his seat
after giving Benson his directions--speed, and a corner a few blocks
away from Chatham Square--he was not so sure that it was all right. It
was entirely a question of time. Given the time and the
opportunity--Niccolo Sonnino out of the road, for instance--given twenty
minutes ahead of Clarie Archman and Gentleman Laroque, it would be
simple enough. But otherwise--his lips thinned--otherwise, he did not
know. Otherwise, there was promise of strange, grim work before
daylight came, work that might lead him out of necessity to the role of
Smarlinghue, and as Smarlinghue--anywhere! He did not know; he knew only
one thing--that, at any cost, if it lay within any power of his to
prevent it, David Archman should not live a broken man.
The car speeded its way rapidly along in a downtown direction, Benson
keeping, wherever possible, to the unfrequented streets. Jimmie Dale,
busy with his problem, his mind sifting and turning this way and that
the curious, and in some cases apparently conflicting details of the
Tocsin's letter, paid little attention to his surroundings, save to note
approvingly from time to time that a request to Benson to hurry was
equivalent to something perilously near to a contempt of speed laws.
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